There have been social media reports by Vancouver Island residents who say they felt the tremor. However, the seismic event had a relatively deep depth of 24 kilometres, which reduced the amount of shaking that could have been felt.

However, this evening’s earthquake was located away from the swarm, several hundred kilometres south closer to the province’s major population centres.

British Columbia is hit by thousands of earthquakes every year, but only a small fraction hold a magnitude of 3 or greater. In addition, most of the province’s earthquakes are away from land – in the Pacific Ocean off the western coast of Vancouver Island.